Gangland
One of the first calls rookie tribal police officer Sandra Scala (Dana Namerode, "What Josiah Saw") goes to with her seasoned partner Teddy Sharpe (Lou Diamond Phillips, "Young Guns") on the Thunderstone Reservation is a heartbreaker. Young Albert (Lane Factor, TV's 'Reservation Dogs'), who recently lost his mother and is living with his grandmother Chelsea (Irene Bedard, "Smoke Signals"), was walking in the woods with his friend Jake (stuntman Ryker Sixkiller) when they came across the body of his older brother, lost to the drugs which are rampant in "Gangland."
Laura's Review: B-
Debuting screenwriter Zach Montague's script feels a bit like TV's 'Dark Winds' crossed with 'Task' and a dollop of "Slow Horses,' the latter because it appears those in the Thunderstone Reservation Tribal Police are there because of personal scandals, deserved or not, in local and state police departments. He's fashioned a three-pronged conflict, with the Tribal Police who wish to protect the citizens of the reservation, the local police led by Sheriff Darius Humphrey (Nick Stahl, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines") who'd just as soon wreck violence on the indigenous community and the lethal gang leader, Richie Blacklance (Elisha Pratt, "Killers of the Flower Moon"), just out of prison and itching to declare war on them both.
Sandra, who is Greek, will learn that her partner isn't indigenous either, Teddy, who is half Filipino, scoffing when she uses the politically correct term. He'll explain that he grew up outside the reservation, but his wealthier classmates 'lumped him in' with the 'Indians' from the reservation and he not only was fine with that but 'married one of them.' At first, Sandra is shocked watching Teddy operate with his own rules, stopping trespassers, taking their weapons and telling them to go home rather than arresting them, but she'll soon learn her senior partner is trying to do what's right for a community that has been losing its youth to gangs, drugs and despair. As he says, those on the reservation hate the police and have reason to and it is his and her job to protect them, not prove them wrong. Teddy also has a secret in his past that weighs heavily on him, the reason for his having left the state police.
Director Vincent Grashaw ("What Josiah Saw") allows Phillips and Namerode to develop both their characters and their relationship in the first act of his film, Phillips' amusingly irreverent attitude as Teddy and his relationship with the reservation on display when he and Sandra discover a man locked in a trunk and offer to let him out only to be asked if they have a warrant. Observing an older indigenous man overlooking the situation from his back door, Teddy observes that he must have a decent beef with the guy in the trunk and they leave. Invited to dinner at her partner's house, his wife Dyani (Kimberly Guerrero, TV's 'It: Welcome to Derry') tells Sandra that Teddy must like her because he made his previous partner stay in the patrol car while he ate and took a nap on the couch. Teddy's compassion can be seen in their visit to Chelsea, specifically to check on Albert who is the same age as Teddy's own son. She will tell him that Richie is the only one who is 'dead to her,' despite just having lost another grandson. Grashaw segues into the film's tribal intrigue when Richie appears outside Chelsea's house at night, suggesting his mother is somehow to blame for these 'dead and broken kids,' although some of that intrigue's subplots are a bit muddled.
The driving incident in the film will be Richie's luring of his nephew Albert out of his mother's house, prodding the boy into initiation by the Nation that will involve Albert being forced to stab a friend. Teddy is intent on saving the boy, having kept his whereabouts secret from Humphrey who is hunting him down. Exacerbating everything is Richie's use of Teddy's tangenital involvement in a sexual abuse scandal that impacted the reservation's male youth to drive a wedge between Richie and the cop trying to help him.
Lou Diamond Phillips sinks his teeth into this role, his wild western ways providing amusing initial conflict for Namerode, who plays things more stoically, to bounce off of as the two actors gradually form a working partnership. Also strong is Pratt, who tempers his villainy with genuine outrage at the injustice doled his people and allows a flicker of compassion and reflection to cross his expression as he recognizes Albert isn't cut out for the path Richie's trying to set him on. Stahl is more straight up sadistic, doling out most of the film's violence. The open, warm and cheerful Guerrero provides a nice feminine counterpart to Bedard, who carries the weight of tragic history on her shoulders.
In his feature debut, cinematographer Brandon Waddell shows a talent for widescreen composition, especially with several effective nighttime scenes. Grashaw allows "Gangland" to run a bit long, but the film illustrates how oppression of multiple kinds leads to systemic social ills while also allowing the inhabitants of Thunderstone to follow Teddy's lead in defining their own justice.
Saban Films has set "Gangland" for both a theatrical and VOD release on 7/10/26.
